Russian PMs and experts for criminal responsibility for rehabilitation of Nazism

MOSCOW, February 27, (ITAR-TASS). Deputies, experts and public representatives support the bill urging criminal responsibility for rehabilitation of Nazism. The United Russia Party will propose to the State Duma lower house of parliament to pass the bill before VE-Day, May 9, Irina Yarovaya, chairperson of the State Duma Security and Anti-corruption Committee and one of the authors of the bill, told the meeting of the Patriotic platform of United Russia on Thursday.

She said representatives of various factions had supported the initiative. Some 50 deputies had signed it, she said.

“I have no doubt that parliament will be unanimous in assessing the bill and in the awareness that rehabilitation of Nazism is a crime,” she stressed.

Dwelling on the importance of the bill, Yarovaya touched upon the events in Ukraine and warned against the consequences of rehabilitation of Nazism. “Ukraine is a patent example of where the policy of ideologization and revision of history leads, when fascism is no longer limited to propaganda but is linked with crime, attempts at a state coup, insult to human dignity and actual murder,” said the MP.

Experts and political scientists who participated in the meeting of the Patriotic platform were unanimously for imposing criminal responsibility for rehabilitation of Nazism.

The State Duma presently considers a bill on prison terms of up to five years for justification of Nazism, drafted by Yarovaya. It is a variant of the initiative the then speaker of the lower house, Boris Gryzlov, and other members of United Russia proposed several years ago.

The bill will envisage sanctions for denial of the sentence passed by the International Military Tribunal, for denying the activity of the armies of the anti-Hitler coalition countries to support international peace and security in the years of the Second World War and for spreading deliberately falsified information about the activity of the armies of the anti-Hitler coalition countries combined with accusing them of crimes, concocting evidence of crimes.

A new article of the Criminal Code, "ehabilitation of Nazism”, is proposed. The sanctions envisaged under the article are to amount to 300,000 roubles, or the deprivation of freedom for up to three years. The same actions performed by a person with the use of position or the use of the mass media carry the fine of from 100,000 to 500,000 roubles or the deprivation of freedom for up to five years, accompanied with the ban on holding certain posts or engaging in certain activities for three years. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation supported the initiative.

Yarovaya said earlier that the adjusted version of the bill proposed five years ago will be referred for consideration of the State Duma. She said it has verified juridical definitions in line with the requirements of international law and not subject to dual interpretation.